'Come to Jesus moment': Rev. Samuel Rodriguez's hopes new campaign will lead to immigration reform
A prominent Hispanic Christian pastor is calling on federal lawmakers and American citizens to have a “come to Jesus moment” when it comes to solving illegal immigration as his organization prepares to unveil a grassroots campaign to draw awareness to the crisis ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference is planning to unveil its campaign, “the Urgency of Now,” at an event in the border city of McAllen, Texas, on March 28, which is Holy Thursday this year. The “Urgency of Now” campaign seeks to mobilize 65 million Latino voters and 20 million Latino Evangelicals to push Congress to take up comprehensive immigration reform ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The NHCLC provided further details concerning its vision for a comprehensive immigration reform package in an email to The Christian Post. Specifically, the proposal calls for continued construction of a border wall on the United States’ southern border with Mexico, a reversion to the Remain in Mexico policy that required individuals seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico while their claims are adjudicated, and the implementation of E-Verify nationwide to require employers to determine the immigration status of their employees.
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"This truly is a comprehensive plan," Rodriguez, president of NHCLC, said in an interview with CP. "It deals with the immediate urgency of securing the border, doing away with catch and release, requiring individuals to wait in Mexico while their asylum applications get processed. It does away permanently with the idea of ever obtaining citizenship if you come into this country illegally.
“That’s reserved exclusively for those that are born in America and for those that go through the naturalization process legally,” he stressed. Rodriguez said the plan also includes legalizing the group of approximately 1.6 million to 1.8 million immigrants referred to as “dreamers” who were brought into the country illegally as children and “provides a pathway for a green card, legalization not citizenship, for individuals that are undocumented and have been here for more than 15, 20 years.”
Rodriguez insisted that green cards would only be provided to those “whose children were born here, raised here” and “people who are contributing to our economy, different sectors of our society, and are not dependent on government subsidies, and have never been involved in nefarious or criminal activities.”
When asked how the plan would prevent fraud, Rodriguez said, “There must be an electronic process where we verify while simultaneously protecting the privacy of individuals and not giving the government an additional layer of power.”
The faith leader expressed a desire to see “the conduit of states” implement “an E-Verification process in order to validate the legitimacy of each Dreamer that is applying for legalization status.” He conceded that the effort would amount to a “rigorous process,” but remained confident that “we have the wherewithal and the fortitude and the resources to accomplish it.”
Another aspect of the “Urgency of Now” campaign involves promoting “full assimilation and integration” within the immigrant communities. “The idea of perpetual separation and boxing out the immigrant community needs to come to an end,” he asserted, stressing the importance of making sure that “these individuals become acclimated to what we call the American experience.”
Rodriguez listed “civics, why we are who we are as Americans, our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence and this radical transformative exceptional idea that [was] exclusive to us initially, now adopted around the world, that our rights, believe it or not, are given to us by Almighty God,” as ideas that constitute the American experience. “They are not the outcomes of government consensus, but our rights are given to us by God, and only God can take away these rights,” he added.
“We want to make sure these individuals learn English, that they are able to articulate and express themselves in the English vernacular, and they are able to become healthy, contributing members of our society.” In order to put pressure on lawmakers and presidential candidates to prioritize immigration reform, Rodriguez told CP that the “Urgency of Now” campaign will include “some radio ads” and “some television ads.”
“We are going to saturate [the] market with this message of the Urgency of Now,” he vowed. “We’re mobilizing and messaging in swing states, making immigration the most important issue.”
Rodriguez identified the states the campaign is targeting as including Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia. The initiative intends to tell voters, “listen, this is what’s at stake,” using “stats” and “facts” as opposed to “hyperbole” and “divisive rhetoric.”
Noting that 8 million illegal immigrants have been encountered by law enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border since President Joe Biden took office, Rodriguez proclaimed, “there should be a come to Jesus moment, a fear of God moment emerging out of every American.” He maintained that “this is not a Republican or Democratic issue,” warning “our very safety is at hand.”
Rodriguez discussed the safety concerns posed by the large numbers of illegal immigrants entering the country: “Let’s not forget that these individuals that are coming in, for example from Venezuela, the vast majority are good people. But there are members of gangs coming in. [Venezuelan President] Nicolas Maduro did not empty out universities. What he did is he emptied out prisons and he said, ‘go north … go to America.’”
“So, now we have gang bangers from Venezuela, one of them responsible for the murder of [nursing student Laken] Riley in Athens,” he lamented. Noting how, in many cases, the communities impacted by crime committed by illegal immigrants “happen to be communities of color,” Rodriguez proclaimed that “the immigration crisis is a great concern for the Latino community and the legal immigrant community.”
Rodriguez attributed polling data showing “Latinos voting more and more towards the GOP” to the “immigration malaise.” While the 118th U.S. Congress has already tried and failed to take up the issue of comprehensive reform, Rodriguez highlighted how one aspect of the legislative package rejected by Congress was “just not going to work.”
“There were some issues I had with the bill, primarily in the area of 4,000 to 5,000 illegal entries daily before many of the major [enforcement] mechanisms would be triggered. And I believe that’s a nonstarter. We can’t begin by saying we’re going to permit 4,000 to 5,000 people a day to break the law before we apply the law.”
Rodriguez remains optimistic that “there may be another attempt” at comprehensive immigration reform by Congress even though it's a presidential election year. He asked the leading presidential candidates of both political parties, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, to “fully acknowledge” that “this nation is a nation of immigrants and we are blessed because we are a nation of immigrants” in addition to agreeing that “we are a nation of the rule of law and one cannot be sacrificed for the other.”
“It is ‘both and,' not ‘either or,’” he stated about the two principles he asked both candidates to adhere to. “I need both parties to be fully committed to stopping illegal immigration. When I say stop illegal immigration, in my heart and my mind, I hear the following: stop human trafficking, stop the exploitation of children, [and] stop the entry of fentanyl.”
Rodriguez also predicted that stopping illegal immigration will “stop lawlessness that impacts not just the southern border but inner cities USA who see 8 million people breaking the law getting a debit card, a cell phone, having their housing and food paid for and being rewarded for breaking the law,” asking, “What message are we conveying to our children and our children’s children?” He insisted that “stopping illegal immigration has incredible [outcomes] as it pertains to derivative applications.”
As for the progress of convincing lawmakers to embrace his proposal, Rodriguez told CP that “a member of Congress … from one of the parties at a very high level, gave me a call.” Noting that the individual, whose name he did not disclose, left a message on his cell phone, Rodriguez said, “I have likewise been in contact with the other side of the aisle and there is a meeting being scheduled as we speak.”
“There is interest on both sides of the aisle regarding the Urgency of Now,” he said. “We are asking politicians from both sides of the aisle to sign on to this plan.”
Rodriguez added that NHCLC is “recruiting donors as we speak in order to inundate social media platforms” and is “looking for donations that will help us get this message out as expeditiously as possible.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
